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Why Trade Critics Are Getting Traction

The benefits of open markets are more uneven than economic theories had assumed.

By

William A. Galston

March 29, 2016 6:43 p.m. ET

The debate over trade is one of the loudest in a high-decibel campaign. And like the rest of the nominating contest, it is being conducted in a largely fact-free zone. Developments over the past quarter-century warrant a thorough rethinking of U.S. trade policy, but the rhetoric of the past year will make it harder to get where we need to go.

Let’s start with what for many Democrats is their party’s original sin—the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which was adopted by Congress in the first year of Bill...